Monday, April 25, 2011

Here is snow in April pic on my recycled water pipe fence (project in construction). Although this was from earlier in the month we have barley seen warmer weather sence. No I don't think this is typical for Idaho April weather, highs in the 40's and 50's is not the norm. last year we had a very cool/cold spring and this year is just about the same, but this April must be just a bit cooler than last because I used more heat than last year for April.

Winter 2008/2009

One more April pic, this time a more up beat pic, backyard bird feeder.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

First off I would like to say hi to my followers as strange as that sounds. I guess if I have people reading my blog I better at least write something here. ha ha

Almost mid April and not much of a spring yet. Sense the beginning of April we have only had one nice day. And March was not all that great either. Despite the 3 snow falls we had here in April to my surprise we had pacific tree frogs come out of hiding. Very strange to me to see tree frogs at night in below freezing weather near snow on the ground. I am sure they know what they are doing, but I still hope they are ok.
Just like the frogs I too have had enough winter and will be happy to see more sunshine and warmer days. The trees have not yet budded out and even the early flowers have yet to send up blooms. This year and last have been very cold for spring, I hope this trend does not continue I would like to be back to having flowers and tree buds in April.
None of this weather is all that great for my desert plants, but despite the cold winter and spring this is not what did in some of my plants. The real killer was when they were still growing in the fall and two record cold snaps hit them. The first cold snap was in early Nov. and the other was in early Dec. it was the hardest I have seen it on my plants even though it was not the coldest my plants have seen it.

Agave parryi, covered and looking good.

Here is another surprise, agave hybrid, looking not to bad (some burn) uncovered for the winter.

This is one of them that hurts the most, yucca brevifolia (joshua trees) or as I like to call them j-trees. I grew this one from seed as with almost all my j-trees. This plant was over 10 years old and been through many a bad winters and never had the damage it received this winter. It most likely is a goner but should come back from the roots. If it does I will move this plant away from the newly planted grass, which may have also caused some of the damage do to me watering the grass seed into the fall.

Crown rot

Other cactus and such that either lived or was killed or damaged by the early cold spells last fall.

yucca rostrata

yucca torryi, and I so hope it does not rot any further.

yucca rostrata.

yucca baccata (banana yucca) untouched, but I have seen these died if kept wet in the winter.

And what may be the saddest of all, my big j-tree that I have grown from seed, I have never seen it with so much winter burn and crown rot. Sad.

pic of crown rot

I think I may have forgot to mention that our low for the winter was -13.6F just about normal for here in Idaho